


The Summer of the Bees

by Kibbers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Because That Exists, Bees, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Small Town Magic, small town, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That night, though, when Gabe sat on the porch steps and the night had fallen thick like sleep across the town, he asked his father what she meant. “Dad,” he said, “What’s the Summer of the Bees?”</p><p>His father grinned. He’d been wanting to tell Gabe about the bees for years but the bees hadn’t come. Until now. “This town’s an old one, you and I both know that. And sometimes in old towns, strange things happen. Many folks call it a phenomenon. I call it magic. See, we live in this place of belief, of love, of laughter. Magic.</p><p>“Every few summers, five or six since the last by my count, the bees come...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Summer of the Bees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarlightDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDragon/gifts).



> Huge happy birthday to [ Rose ](http://casandsip.tumblr.com/)! I hope you enjoy! Everyone go wish this wonderful human (bee-ing ;)) a magical day okay? She deserves every bit of kindness, trust me!

Gabe was seven, gap-toothed and wind-wild when the town he grew up in started to whisper. That wasn’t so strange, small town and all. What else was there but whispers? No, that wasn’t strange at all. It was what they were whispering that caught at the edges of Gabe’s mind. The first time he heard it, was across the dinner table. He was trying to land a piece of corn in Castiel’s ear when his neighbor lowered her voice atop her empty plate. He could only catch a small bit of what she said, the Summer of the Bees. 

His father had no chance to respond as Gabriel finally landed the piece in Cas’s ear and chaos erupted. It took three phone calls and a ‘punishment’ trudge through the spring night two blocks over to get a pair of tweezers small enough to fish it back out. He’d always liked the night though, especially in the spring, so Gabe didn’t mind much. Though, he wished the flowers would bloom already. It was weeks into spring and there was no color dotting the sidewalks. The night was soft, though, so he couldn't complain. Plus, that shit was fucking hilarious, pardon his french.   
  
That night, though, when Gabe sat on the porch steps and the night had fallen thick like sleep across the town, he asked his father what she meant. “Dad,” he said, “What’s the Summer of the Bees?”  
  
His father grinned. He’d been wanting to tell Gabe about the bees for years but the bees hadn’t come. Until now. “This town’s an old one, you and I both know that. And sometimes in old towns, strange things happen. Many folks call it a phenomenon. I call it magic. See, we live in this place of belief, of love, of laughter. Magic.   
  
“Every few summers, five or six since the last by my count, the bees come. Hundreds of them, thousands. Everyone plants their yards to the brim these summers, and then we wait. Nothing blooms until they come, that’s how we know. It’ll be a week, two weeks, then three into spring and when no color shows, the town starts to get ready. We plant more, we leave sugar water on the porch. And then, we wait. It’ll be a random afternoon, the heat sweltering maybe, while we rock on our porches. Or, it’ll be the dead of night and the town will be asleep.   
  
“The buzzing will come, faint at first. We all freeze, waiting. Was it our imagination? Was it just a car passing by? But then it’ll grow louder and we'll all know it wasn't our imagination. No, it was something better and more magical still. We hurry home. Once I left the freezer open at the store down the way and everything melted because the owner left too. Had a pretty penny to pay for that.” He paused and Gabe realized how still he’d grown while listening. He shifted against the porch steps, laying flat on his back to look past the rain gutters to where the stars grinned.   
  
“So, the bees came?” Gabe asked after the silence stretched and stretched.   
  
“So, the bees came. My first Summer of the Bees I didn’t believe what they all said. The bees choose the best of ‘em. You find bees on your lawn, your car, in your bedroom, you’re one of the lucky ones. Better still if they touch your skin. Luck lasts until the next time they come too. I shook it off. Bees landed where the flowers were. That’s all there was to it. But, then the bees came, a cloud from down the dirt road. The buzzing, though loud, wasn’t as deafening as I thought it should have been, so many of them and all. Rumor was they quieted around us, whispering too.   
  
“I stood on my porch as everyone else in town did the same and the bees, the bees chose. Every flower they landed on bloomed the next day, each person they touched wore a kind of magic for awhile. The summer they landed on my lawn, on my porch, right there on that step, I met your mother. The next, they moved past me without a stray buzz in my direction. Haven’t had one since then.”   
  
Gabe ran his hands over the porch step, hoping maybe some of the luck or magic would live there still. He didn’t know much of the world, but he knew it couldn’t hurt anything to have that sort of blessing.   
  
Gabe didn’t know it at the time, but the next Summer of the Bees would touch Lucifer and he’d be gone by autumn. That’s when the porch nights would cease and his father would spend days shut in his bedroom. But, for now, it was still magic, these nights on the porch with his father’s words and the stars.   
  
“And now, another summer begins,” his father said into the night. Another summer indeed. Gabe spent weeks listening, waiting for the buzzing to come. He sat by the window in his bedroom for hours, jimmied the rusting lock to lift just an inch so he’d be able to hear if they came in the middle of the night. Spent sunburnt hours at the lake and on the porch scanning the horizon for the magic bringers.   
  
It seemed like eternities since he and his father, together, planted as many flowers as they could, bulbs green and waiting to burst in their front yard. With each one, Gabe whispered a wish to be chosen as he covered their roots in dirt. Maybe the flowers just had to ask. Seemed simple as that to him. Eternities and eternities passed still.   
  
Then the buzzing started like a scratch at the back of his throat. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming as he’d done for weeks and weeks. But, it grew louder and his father knocked at his door. It was time. The bees were coming.   
  
In his bare feet, his father waiting on the porch steps, Gabe stood in the grass of his lawn, toes tickling, while the bees arrived. It wasn’t a swarm, but a wave. One he wanted to wade into. Somehow he knew they were here for magic and luck. For love and love alone. Gabe stood with his palms outstretched and hoped for the bees to come to him. This town was his, but sometimes it didn’t fit so nice around his shoulders. Maybe with them, with their blessing, he’d end up somewhere that would button around him softer, better. Maybe with them, he’d be able to find where he belonged.   
  
That summer, he watched as the bees passed him by. Even after the passed through town, Gabe stood in his lawn beneath the stars, hoping maybe one was slow. One fell behind. His was coming.   
  
His father carried him inside after the sun started to rise and laid Gabriel in his bed, grass indents pressed against his face. They spoke not of it again.   
  
Still, without the bees blessing, Gabriel found his feet and ran. Found a town that fit better on his tongue. Found a home and made it his own. It was still a small town, sure, but it was somewhere else. Somewhere of his own choosing. He’d long since forgotten the bees when the flowers he planted in his yard didn’t bloom one summer a few years after he moved in. He hardly noticed.   
  
Gabe was twenty seven, carefree and outskirt-living, when everyone was talking about something else. Until they weren’t anymore. The stranger had long since become a resident and well-loved at that, and so they talked about the bees.   
  
Standing in the grocery store, he did what his father did years ago and left the freezer door open as someone uttered the words Summer of the Bees. He was a child standing on his lawn again, hand outstretched and perpetually empty. He went home. He tore the flowers from his yard. He would not give himself the chance to hope. It would only end in ant bites between his toes.   
  
The day the bees came, Gabe tucked himself into the back corner of the bookstore, trying to ignore the way the buzz brought him back to his childhood where his father was soft and smiling, and porch nights still felt like magic. It would pass and he’d be no different after. All he had to do was wait it out.   
  
He was grumbling into his book at the chatter seeping through the walls of the bookstore as the bees took over when he bell jingled at the front. Gabe didn’t look up. Footsteps made their way through the cushioned carpet and still he kept his head down.   
  
“Hey, you uh, you got a little something there,” a voice cut through his grumbling. Gabe’s head jerked up to find Sam Winchester himself standing in front of Gabe. This was the first time he’d spoken to the man, or the man had spoken to him.   
  
“Huh?” Gabe asked. Real eloquent.   
  
“I said you, uh, got something there.” Gabe stared blankly, brain somehow unable to follow Sam’s finger where it pointed at his hand.     
  
“You know what, let me get it.” Sam stood over Gabe, letting his long fingers brush the skin of Gabe’s outstretched hand where it rested on the armrest of the chair he’d sunken into to wait out the storm. On his palm sat a bee, quiet, but there. Sam knelt, then, and held out his finger for the bee to climb onto as it started to buzz. Gabe’s heart leapt, first at the bee tickling his palm with his father’s words ringing in his ears, then at Sam Winchester’s grin when the bee stayed put on his long finger.   
  
“Hi, I’m Sam.”   
  
“Hello, Sam. I’m Gabriel,” Gabriel said. He paused and Sam stayed put.“ Tell me, Sam, has anyone told you yet about the Summer of the Bees?”   
  
Sam shook his head and sat cross legged in front of Gabe as Gabe let the words fall from his lips. All the while more and more bees filtered in from cracks the men could not see to rest on their shoulders, their outstretched hands, Sam and Gabe surrounded with soft buzzing.   
  
Tomorrow in town, there’d be buzzing of a different kind. Did you see that Winchester boy, hands covered? Did you see Gabriel, shoulder’s full of the yellow critters? Did you see the bees follow them around the park all afternoon and then back home to Gabriel’s house? Did you see Sam slide his hand into Gabriel’s when he thought no one was looking and Gabe’s beaming smile when he did?   
  
The Summer of the Bees came and went and next time, Sam and Gabe, together, knelt in the soil to plant them offerings of thanks for bringing them together all those years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it please leave a comment below or come say hi on tumblr [ here](http://kibberswrites.tumblr.com/)!


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